Why Movie Franchise Fatigue Isn’t Really Happening, According To One Theater CEO

Why Movie Franchise Fatigue Isn’t Really Happening, According To One Theater CEO

If you’ve been to the movies in recent years, it’s hard to miss the fact that the film industry -- particularly domestically but also internationally -- has heavily relied on franchise content, returning to stories, universes and characters that breed familiarity and (often) fond feelings. However, at the same time, there is a faction of people who are vocal about not wanting interconnected franchises, and there are common gripes about the proliferation of remakes and reboots as well.

If you ask Jane Hastings, however, movie franchise fatigue isn’t really a thing. At least, not yet.

Speaking during an event at CinemaCon 2019, Jane Hastings, CEO & Managing Director, Event Hospitality & Entertainment Ltd. spoke out about the biggest movies of 2018, noting that all of them were in some ways continuations of popular franchises.

She said at CinemaCon that box office year over year has shown that franchise fatigue isn’t really a thing and that the audience still has an appetite for the larger budget franchise movies, noting,

Regardless, if a franchise is new, if it’s good, if it’s quality, it will work… So, we’re in good shape. Why? Because people always want to be entertained.

Citing 2018’s box office as evidence, Jane Hastings also mentioned the top five movies in the past year were all returns to worlds and characters that have found love with audiences in prior years and movies.

The five biggest movies last year were as follows:

Avengers: Infinity War

Black Panther

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Incredibles 2

Aquaman (With a late release date, this box office also led into 2019)

It’s not just franchise movies that are absolutely dominating the box office, but bigger movies in general. Last year, a whopping 83% of movie box office totals came from “the majors,” or what Janes Hasting cites as the biggest budget movies with the most oomph in terms of budget and advertising from the major studios.

This means that fewer titles are actually contributing to more of the box office intake than happened in the past within the theater and movie industries. It's a trend that should continue into 2019 as there are a slew of franchise movies set to launch this year from the major studios. This includes but is definitely not limited to Avengers: Endgame, Godzilla: King of The Monsters, Frozen 2, Hobbs and Shaw, Jumanji 3 and plenty more.

Looking at two of the biggest movies of last year, Black Panther and Aquaman, both are origin stories, yet they do fall within the larger Marvel and DC comics universes. They are part of a bigger picture, and despite only having one solo appearance, the character of T’Challa, for example, has already made three big screen appearances so far. The trajectory is similar for Jason Momoa’s Aquaman character. Both origin flicks also have a lot of additional stuff in common, including making over a billion dollars internationally and easily earning greenlights for Black Panther 2 and Aquaman 2.

So, people are still clearly seeing these franchise movies, and Jane Hastings cites an increase in connecting with fans and creating good products as to why franchise fatigue isn’t really a thing.

It's not like every franchise movie that comes out is great. The same is true of original movies, which run the gamut from good to bad. There may come a point when we've hit franchise fatigue, too. Sort of like how some long-running TV shows go on a little too long and a percentage of the audiences loses interest after a while. Clearly we aren't there with Marvel or DC content yet, but we have seen recent Transformer movies do less well than their predecessors. When that happened, Paramount pivoted and gave us Bumblebee, a spinoff that renewed interest in the franchise.

It's also true that every franchise has to start somewhere, and there are still a lot of studios pushing out interesting and new content at all budget levels. We will get plenty of original movies this year, ranging from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood to Artemis Fowl. Then again, with the latter, there is presumably the hope of a franchise given the large number of books to draw from; Disney will just have to wait and see how the box office pans out.

So, if you were hoping for more original movies – at least of the big budget variety in the future – the box office itself is telling a different story. Which leads me to the question: Do you agree? Has box office intake taken over quality or have franchises managed to create engaging stories with familiar characters and universes?

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Will Ferrell And Adam McKay Are Breaking Up, Creatively, After 13 Years

Will Ferrell And Adam McKay Are Breaking Up, Creatively, After 13 Years

Like Detectives Gamble and Hoitz, racers Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr., newspeople Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone, and stepbrothers Brennan Huff and Dale Doback, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have been an unstoppable team, finding success in Hollywood for over a decade. But all good things must come to an end, and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are breaking up, creatively.

The two men have decided to go their separate ways for future creative endeavors, thus ending a creative partnership that has lasted 13 years. Together Will Ferrell and Adam McKay formed the comedy generating production company Gary Sanchez, which spawned a spinoff company, the female-centric Gloria Sanchez. Those Paramount-based production companies will see through development and completion of their existing projects, but will probably be winding down as Will Ferrell and Adam McKay move on to new things.

In a statement released to Deadline, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay confirmed the split while ending things on a thankful and positive note. The statement reads:

The last 13 years could not have been more enjoyable and satisfying for the two of us at Sanchez Productions. We give massive thanks to our incredible staff and executives and all the writers, directors and actors we worked with through the years. The two of us will always work together creatively and always be friends. And we recognize we are lucky as hell to end this venture as such.

Although they may be breaking up from their formal creative partnership, this parting is not an unhappy one, as the two seem to be quite thankful and proud of the time they spent together and projects they worked on. This is not an acrimonious split, but an amicable and mutual decision. While their business relationship is coming to an end, their personal one is not, and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay remain close friends.

This isn’t the end of their work together either. As they say in their statement, they will continue to work together creatively. The two still have a huge slate of shared projects, so although this is the end of one chapter of the Ferrell/McKay partnership, we may still see Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s name in the credits of future movies (fingers crossed Step Brothers 2 will reunite them one day).

The two have begun to diverge in their creative pursuits, with Adam McKay moving more towards politically charged films, like last year’s Vice, while Will Ferrell continues with the more traditional comedy fare that has made him a household name. As far as the future is concerned, the details are still being worked out, but both Ferrell and McKay will explore new endeavors and projects individually, and they are each expected to form new ventures for their post-Gary Sanchez careers.

So ends a partnership that is probably best measured in the number of laughs delivered. In addition to collaborating as producers on films like Daddy’s Home, Adam McKay directed Will Ferrell in a slew of modern comedy classics, including Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Anchorman and Anchorman 2, The Other Guys and Step Brothers.

Will Ferrell will next be onscreen later this year in James Franco’s long-delayed Zeroville, a star-studded film about Hollywood in 1969, not to be confused with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is also a star-studded film about Hollywood in 1969. That should make for an interesting double feature.

After his multiple Oscar nominations for Vice, Adam McKay is next attached to direct Bad Blood, another ripped-from-the-headlines story, this one about biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes. The film is supposed to star Jennifer Lawrence and Will Ferrell is also attached as a producer.

Check out our 2019 release schedule to keep track of all the movies coming to theaters this year, and let us know your favorite Will Ferrell and Adam McKay film in the comments below.

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Richard Madden As The Next James Bond? Rocketman Star On His 'Flattering' Odds

Richard Madden As The Next James Bond? Rocketman Star On His 'Flattering' Odds

Now that the new Batman has been found in the form of Robert Pattinson (probably), it's time to turn to another pop culture icon with casting rumors: James Bond. Daniel Craig is reprising the role for the final time, but that hasn't stopped people from speculating on who will pay James Bond in the next movie. One of the most popular rumors has been Richard Madden, and while the actor is flattered by the speculation, he denied being up for the part.

Ever since Daniel Craig famously said he'd rather "slit his wrists" than make another James Bond movie after the release of Spectre, rumors have run rampant about who the next Bond could be. Names have included Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hardy, and Idris Elba, but Richard Madden has become a recent favorite for the iconic spy.

Daniel Craig is evidently not slitting his wrists and will play Bond one last time in Bond 25, but after that it's anyone's game. Madden's name is once again popping up as a potential candidate, but the actor is (predictably) denying any intention to play the character.

Richard Madden might be an unfamiliar name to some, but fans will most likely recognize him from his work on Game of Thrones as Robb Stark. The actor also proved his action chops in the acclaimed BBC series Bodyguard, which helped add fuel to the James Bond fire. Madden can be seen in the upcoming Elton John biopic Rocketman, which premiered at Cannes this week to rave reviews.

Richard Madden was at Cannes this week promoting Rocketman, and it didn't take long for someone to ask him a James Bond question. One journalist told him that the odds of him playing James Bond increased 2-1, and the white suit that Madden wore on the red carpet certainly put James Bond in people's minds (via Variety). Here's what Madden said:

It’s very flattering to be involved in that conversation at all, but it’s all just talk, and I’m sure next week it’ll be someone different.

Well, he's not wrong that someone else will inevitably be the next rumor, but it's not like Richard Madden would be able to give any definitive answers if he were up for the part. However, Madden is also up for a lead role in Marvel's Eternals, which would presumably take up most of his time.

Thankfully, his Rocketman co-star Taron Egerton was there to have some fun with the situation. After Richard Madden gave his answer, Egerton starting humming the iconic James Bond theme, which got a good laugh from from Madden.

It's unclear who will play the next James Bond, but lets not put the cart before the horse. We still have to deal with Bond 25, which is slated to release in theaters on April 8, 2020. That's less than a year away, but you can keep yourself occupied with our 2019 movie release guide.

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Wait, Is Avengers: Endgame Getting An Intermission Internationally?

Wait, Is Avengers: Endgame Getting An Intermission Internationally?

One of the most talked about aspects of Avengers: Endgame has been the film's length. It clocks in at over three hours long, which has many people wondering how they're going to withstand it, sitting in a theater for that long, not really wanting to take a break for fear of missing anything. It turns out this might only be a problem domestically, as Avengers: Endgame may be getting an intermission in other countries.

The above image purportedly comes from a screening of Avengers: Endgame which recently took place in Italy, the film opened there on April 24. It appears that if you see the film in cinemas there, there is a five minute intermission inserted into the film.

This is something that a lot of people in North America would probably like to see. A five minute break to run to the bathroom or go get more snacks or just to stretch your legs would not be out of line. There are certainly going to be people who need to use the bathroom but aren't going to want to leave the theater for fear of missing something important in a movie that has built up over the last 11 years.

Intermissions aren't entirely unheard of in film, but they haven't been common in recent years. Films like Gone with the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia had intermissions built into them. Many films around three hours long did decades ago.

The most recent film with an intermission that I can recall was Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, though that was only included as part of the longer "Road Show" version of the film. I found it a nice break, and it was structured in such a way that it helped add to the tension of the story. You had a few extra minutes to wonder what was going to happen next before you saw the result. Certainly, such a thing could certainly happen with Avengers: Endgame. And if we're all here for over three hours, what's an extra five or ten minutes?

It's unclear how widespread this phenomenon is. It could be just Italy, or even just this one theater, that has added the intermission, but it certainly wouldn't be surprising to see other places do something similar.

While movies, especially of the epic blockbuster variety, are routinely breaking the two hour mark these days, a movie hitting three hours is still a fairly rare occurrence. It's just a long time and it's a potentially difficult thing to juggle. On the one hand, you don't want to go to the bathroom in the middle, so maybe you forego food and drink before the film. But then again, you don't want to be distracted by your own hunger during the movie, so maybe food is needed.

Some places may get an extra break, but it won't be happening here, so if you're prepping for Avengers: Endgame tonight, be ready for three straight hours of sitting. Hopefully the chair is comfortable.

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Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Is Opening Earlier That We Thought, But There's A Catch

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Is Opening Earlier That We Thought, But There's A Catch

Fans of Star Wars and Disney have been waiting to experience the galaxy far, far away for themselves when Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge finally opens at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. We knew the land was coming this year, but you can't book your hotel room without an exact date. Now we have it. At a Walt Disney Investor Meeting this morning Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that Galaxy's Edge will open earlier than anticipated, at Walt Disney World on August 29 and at Disneyland May 31. However, not all parts of the land will be up and running on opening day.

Previously, the Disneyland version of the land was set to open in the summer, so Disney is getting more than a month jump on that date. Walt Disney World is doing even better. It was given an opening date of late fall 2019, but now it will be opening before the summer ends. However, the Rise of the Resistance attraction will not be open on day one apparently at either location. It will open later in the year as part of a second phase of the land.

There had not been any discussion of Galaxy's Edge being opened in two phases previously. We fully expected both big E-ticket attractions to be up running when the land opened. However, it sounds like the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run attraction will be ready to go earlier, so it was either let the one ride sit idle while Disney waited for the other, or open with the land with one ride and wait for the other.

There will also be an additional catch at Disneyland. anybody wanting to visit the land between opening day and June 23 will need to make a "no-cost reservation." In order to get a reservation, you need to book a room at one of the three Disneyland hotels.

It isn't necessarily all that shocking that Rise of the Resistance is taking a bit longer. Based on the details revealed last week, the scope of the attraction is just physically massive. You can only work so fast when you have to build full size AT-ATs and realistic hallways inside Star Destroyers.

When phase two is expected to open was not revealed on the investor call. It's possible, even likely, that we could see Rise of the Resistance opening closer to the original Galaxy's Edge opening windows, so sometime this summer at Disneyland and in the fall at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

To get you that much more excited a new teaser with the official dates was also released. Check it out below.

Of course, the biggest downside may be that this means the lines for Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run are going to be that much longer on opening day, and every day until Rise of the Resistance opens. With only the one big attraction available, everybody will be waiting for it.

Still, for those people who just want to be there on day one, you now know which day that will be. I'm sure a lot of people are making Disney hotel reservations right now since we finally know which days to make them for. Will you be getting to Galaxy's Edge on day one, or waiting for phase two? Let us know in the poll below.

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The Unexpected Challenge That Came With Creating The Portals For Avengers: Endgame

The Unexpected Challenge That Came With Creating The Portals For Avengers: Endgame

Warning: SPOILERS for Avengers: Endgame are ahead!

We’d already seen magical portals created in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before Avengers: Endgame, but not on this massive a scale. After Hulk brought those who were dusted at the end of Avengers: Infinity War back to life, Doctor Strange and his fellow sorcerers created gigantic portals to transport those MCU heroes and their numerous allies to the battlefield where Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and the others were already engaged with Thanos and his forces.

This portals sequence definitely ranked as one of the most epic moments in Avengers: Endgame, but just as you probably imagined, it was a huge effort to pull off. As Weta Digital visual effects supervisor Matt Aiken told me when I recently interviewed him, the massive size of the portals required he and his team to tackle creating them differently than how that task had been carried out in past movies. Aiken explained:

… Just in terms the technicalities in terms of achieving them, we’ve got portals on a much larger scale than they've ever been seen before. So our simulation team had to find a recipe that would recognizably be… we need to know that this is Doctor Strange’s portals that we're seeing here. They need to feel like the same because they've been seen on a more human scale in the past, but they all had to be optimized because we've got shots of many, many portals. So they would have been prohibitive to generate and render that if we just used the original technique out of the box.

Creating portals is one of those most useful spells a sorcerer can conjure in the MCU, but until Avengers: Endgame, we only saw Doctor Strange and others creating portals big enough to transport one or a couple people. For Endgame, the portals needed to be large enough for armies to walk through with ease. That makes for quite the visual spectacle, but for the VFX crew, it required them to rethink the process of bringing these portals ‘to life’ while still making them feel like what’s been shown before.

But it wasn’t just the size of the portals that posed a challenge in Avengers: Endgame. It was also showing the locations that these individuals were coming from, whether it be somewhere else on Earth or a planet on the other side of the galaxy. Matt Aiken continued:

And then we’ve got the challenge of creating all the worlds that we see inside the portals as well, because these are all these CG environments, there’s no filmed elements inside the portals, and that’s necessary because we need to film those environments with the same camera move that we're filming the ruined Avengers compound on the other side of the portal because everything has to lock together and parallax. And so recreating the fields outside the city in Wakanda, we’re creating New Asgard, we’ve got Kamar-Taj for the sorcerers and Contraxia for the Ravagers. We even got a few shots that where we’re just in deep space, and we've got Ravagers coming out on their sky cycles. And then of course there’s Titan itself, we’ve got that in a few shots as well. That was an opportunity for us to go back to a place that we spent quite a lot of time at last year.

The Marvel characters who were dusted wasted no time banding together once they were brought back to life five years later, and while I’m still curious how they were able to coordinate efforts so quickly, they arrived just in the knick of time from all corners of the universe. It sounds like this sequence wouldn’t have been possible had the Avengers: Endgame team relied on recreating the actual sets of these other MCU locations, but through CG manipulation, it was a much easier, but still ambitious endeavor.

Needless to say that had all those reinforcements not arrived through the magical portals, the heroes we’d been following along with since the beginning of Avengers: Endgame would have been pulverized by Thanos and his minions, who came from 2014 to invade Earth thanks to 2014 Nebula disguising herself as her 2023 self and opening up the Quantum Realm for them. However, even with these extra bodies, the battle didn’t automatically shift in the heroes’ favor.

It wasn’t until Tony Stark swiped the Infinity Stones from 2014 Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet, put them in his own nanotech Infinity Gauntlet and snapped his fingers that the bad guys were defeated. Sadly, such a move is too much for a normal human to handle, and the man we watched fight evil as Iron Man for over a decade died soon after. Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow, met her demise earlier in Avengers: Endgame, and while he survived to the end of the movie (albeit much older), Steve Rogers’ story also wrapped up, as he passed on the Captain America mantle to Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon.

The MCU isn’t wrapping up anytime soon, but it’ll probably be a long time before we see a battle of this scale again. The portals sequence was a cool way to set up the final leg of Avengers: Endgame’s climax; it’s hard to imagine all those heroes arriving on the scene in a more powerful way. The music, as if often the case with movies, also helped the moment emotionally resonate more.

For those of of you who are looking to experience more proper sorcery in the MCU, you’ll get that in spades whenever Doctor Strange 2 arrives, and perhaps some other movies coming down the pipeline will find a way to incorporate magic. Regardless, at least we know that if there’s ever a need to transport crowds of back-up into a messy conflict, Doctor Strange and his cohorts are on the job.

There’s still plenty of time to re-watch Avengers: Endgame in theaters, and while a Blu-ray/DVD release date hasn’t been announced yet, the movie will premiere on Disney+ December 11. If you’re wondering what’s coming up next in the MCU, head over to our Marvel movies guide for that information. If you’d rather learn what non-Marvel content is on the way later this year, look through our 2019 release schedule.

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Sad News, Aunt May Turned To Dust From Thanos’ Infinity War Snap

Sad News, Aunt May Turned To Dust From Thanos’ Infinity War Snap

Just your friendly neighborhood writer giving you the heads up that there are SPOILERS ahead for Avengers: Endgame.

Avengers: Endgame may have offered the universe some much-needed avenging, but there’s still a lot to be addressed about what’s next for many of the MCU's characters after the snap. When things pick up next with Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Far From Home, we’ll learn more about the fallout of Thanos’ Infinity War with the Avengers, including the new dynamic between the dusted and the those who have lived five years without them.

According to a recent Fandango interview with Far From Home director Jon Watts, we have some clarity about the fate of Aunt May prior to the upcoming Spidey film. Here’s what he said:

She disappeared and came back.

It looks like Marisa Tomei’s May suffered the same fate as her nephew. Strangely enough, this is probably preferable to if she’d survived, because she would then be mourning Peter following the previous death of Uncle Ben if she had. How heartbreaking! Directors Joe and Anthony Russo said in an interview last year that she had survived, but during the making of Far From Home, things changed.

Jon Watts also teased how the Spider-Man movie will tie into Endgame with these words:

So many things happened in Endgame, but you don't see any of the fallout. So I used Peter Parker/Spider-Man as an opportunity to get that ground-level perspective to show you what it would look like if all these crazy things had happened. What would day-to-day life be? If you were snapped away, you’d have to work backwards and retake your midterms.

The biggest way Endgame shifts the Spider-Man sequel is he’ll be going to high school in a world where half of his past classmates now have an age gap with him, and Watts has confirmed that Far From Home will definitely be addressing this. Looking at this through the world of Peter Parker’s story arc is a great choice to because he’s the most ground-level hero dealing with everyday life as a student in NYC.

Jon Watts said Far From Home will pick up almost immediately after Endgame and deal with the implications of the Infinity Saga culmination. In addition to Peter and May, it looks like Ned, Michelle Jones, Flash Thompson and Betty Brant were victims of the snap as well since they don’t look like they got older and will be going on a class trip to Europe.

Additionally, it looks like Peter will be dealing with the death of his mentor Tony Stark and a new exciting addition to the MCU: the multiverse. According to the recent trailer, one of the Infinity Stones-powered snaps ripped a hole in the universe, bringing in a much nicer Mysterio than comic book fans remember, as well as the Elementals. The film will wrap up Phase 3 when it hits theaters on July 2.

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